Aaron Judge hit his 53rd homer and drove in three runs as the New York Yankees rolled to a 6-1 victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles and maintained at least a share of first place in the AL East on Saturday.
The Yankees (93-68) tied a season high with their seventh straight win and will end the day at least tied with the Toronto Blue Jays, who started their home game against the Tampa Bay Rays after New York. The Blue Jays were in the second inning when the Yankees finished the quick game.
Judge hit his ninth homer in 16 games when he went deep three batters into the game against Baltimore starter Tomoyuki Sugano (10-10).
After Judge’s latest homer, Giancarlo Stanton and Ryan McMahon added solo shots in the second. Including the postseason, it was the 59th time Judge and Stanton homered in the same game, and the Yankees are 52-7 in those games.
Judge added a two-run single after manager Aaron Boone was handed his major league-leading seventh ejection. Boone was yelling at plate umpire Ramon DeJesus for most of the day and was tossed after Judge took a called strike two.
Cody Bellinger capped the scoring with a sacrifice fly as the Yankees won for the 10th time in 11 games.
Rookie Cam Schlittler made a strong case to be in New York’s postseason rotation by allowing just two hits in seven stellar innings. The right-hander struck out nine, walked one, threw 63 of 97 pitches for strikes and allowed four baserunners.
The Yankees also lost second baseman Jazz Chisholm to a left forearm injury when he was hit by a pitch from Grant Wolfram in the fifth. Chisholm had x-rays that were negative and will get a CT scan.
Sugano allowed four runs on five hits in 4 1/3 innings as the Orioles (75-86) fell to 4-8 against the Yankees this season.
Baltimore’s Coby Mayo homered in the eighth off Paul Blackburn.
The Yankees took the lead when Judge homered to left. Stanton homered for the second straight game by hitting a 422-foot shot to center field and McMahon also homered to center field in the second inning.
The Yankees added three more runs in the fifth, with Judge knocking in Grisham and McMahon on a single to center before Bellinger’s sac fly.
